


Echoes

by Jadzibelle



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Inevitability, M/M, Past Lives, Reincarnation, TW: Suicide (reference to past lives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-09 23:35:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3268496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadzibelle/pseuds/Jadzibelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They have lived a hundred lives together.</p>
<p>A possible look at the ties that bind them.</p>
<p>(There really isn't a plot here, this was really more a writing exercise than anything, but I kinda liked how it turned out.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes

They have lived a hundred lives together.

In the last one, Duke died throwing himself in front of a bullet, protecting Nathan’s back.  In this one, Duke still has the impulse, the grinding surety that if he isn’t there, Nathan will fall.

(In this one, he is proved right, and he feels the world spin out of control.  The miracle that brings Nathan back saves them both.)

In this one, Nathan feels a sharp rush of panic, grief he cannot explain and cannot ignore, every time Duke takes a foolish chance.  In the last one, Duke died in his arms, clinging to his shirt, and his last words were  _worth it_.

(Nathan didn’t agree; he didn’t last more than six months before he put a gun in his mouth.)

The time before that, Nathan died in a car accident, and Duke drank himself to death within a year.  He still drinks too much, and when they were teenagers, he did all the maintenance on Nathan’s first car- a cheap and ancient Ford- himself.  He always paid particular attention to the brake lines, though there was never anything wrong.

Once, early on, Duke killed Nathan over a lie and a secret, dragged him close and looked him in the eyes as he stabbed him in the chest.  Nathan couldn’t form the words to say he forgave him; Duke lived with the guilt for ten long years, before he died for the same lie.  He found it fitting that he was stabbed in the back by someone he thought he could trust.

Once, a little later, Nathan killed Duke, clean and professional and unconcerned.  It was the only kill of many that ever made him wake in the night and struggle to breathe.  He never did understand why that one man haunted him, why he saw his frightened, desperate eyes when he dreamed.

They both sometimes wake up burning with guilt, desperate to apologize, even if they don’t know why.

They knew each other the moment they laid eyes on each other- they felt the gravity of their pasts, were drawn together like binary stars.  It was far too much for children to understand, but they didn’t have to.  They felt it, and that was enough.

There are a dozen things buried in the way they look at each other, the way that they talk to each other, the way they touch and kiss and cling, that are remnants of the times that came before.  

(Nathan always makes a point to kiss a particular spot on Duke’s collarbone; in one lifetime, there was a scar there from a knife wound Duke had gotten in a barfight the night they met.  Duke always falls asleep with his hand resting over Nathan’s heart; in one lifetime, he spent a week tending Nathan after a snakebite, and the beat under his fingers was all that let him rest.)

They fight with the weight of centuries behind every word, tearing each other apart for offenses that exist only as half-remembered dreams.

Nathan can never quite figure out why Duke likes certain things.  Duke can never quite figure out why Nathan doesn’t.  The echoes get confusing, sometimes, when neither of them is sure just who they are.  When that’s all that they’re sure of.  They’ve tried to walk away, more than once.  They always come back.

In this lifetime, Duke took to sea, sailed away from a town that he hated to explore the world.  He spent the whole time trying every indulgence he could find, trying to soothe the burn beneath his skin.  The first relief he had in years was the day he sailed back into that damn town and found Nathan waiting at the dock.

Nathan could never explain why he’d been there, what had made him stand at the edge of the water for  _hours_ watching the horizon.  But the moment he caught sight of the Cape Rouge coming in was the first time in years he’d felt like he could breathe.

(When they fight, they fight with the same desperate intensity.  It takes them years to figure out that they can’t hate each other half as much as they love each other, no matter how hard they try.  And oh, they try.)

In this lifetime, Duke learns how he’s fated to die.  Nathan takes up the mark of his killer in a moment of anger.  Duke forgives him for it, sooner than he should.

(Nathan wears it like a talisman, now- he can keep the end from coming, so long as it’s his mark, his skin, his hand.  Duke is still pretty sure it will be Nathan who takes him down, and he’s okay with that.  After all, Nathan won’t do it without reason.)

Once, before they were forced apart by circumstances neither could control, they stood together in a grove of trees under a moon that hung heavy and red, and swore that they would find each other again.  No matter what it took, no matter how long, no matter how far they had to travel.

Some promises, once made, cannot be taken back.

Some words, once spoken, echo forever.


End file.
